


Soon Underway

by azarias



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Age of Sail, London era, M/M, Slice of Life, The Royal Navy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-31
Updated: 2019-03-31
Packaged: 2019-12-27 02:49:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18295328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/azarias/pseuds/azarias
Summary: There are many tasks which must be completed before a ship of Her Majesty's Navy sets sail.





	Soon Underway

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to thetrickisnotminding for her beta services. Go read her gonzo Leverage-Pern fusion fusion fic [The Real Big Omelet Job](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16049822?page=2&show_comments=true&view_full_work=true); it's a joy.

Half an hour aboard _HMS Stoat_ , listening to the Lieutenant explain to him the workings of the ship, was long enough for Thomas Hamilton to conclude that the Royal Navy was organized by madmen for the confusion of good Christians, virtuous pagans, and any unwary souls who fell into its path. How else to explain this: that the ship — Thomas had called it a _boat_ and James had winced, then he had called her an _it_ and a sailor over by the rail had crossed himself where James couldn't see — was a _sloop_ but also a _brig_ , and that James was still a _lieutenant_ , but while standing on his ship he was called _Captain_ and on the quayside was _Master and Commander_ as long as this mission lasted. Each sail had a name, and each rope and knot, and Thomas was tempted to ask if the deck planks were ordered by address of the parent tree whence they had been cut. And up and down the pier at Billingsgate were anchored dozens of ships just as complex, with men swarming about them as if they knew what they were doing.

Though this one had a more handsome captain than the rest.

James was broad and imposing in his blue uniform, impossibly elegant as he moved about his ship like a lady around a ballroom. His explanations had utterly lost Thomas sometime back, but he spoke with such authority and confidence that it was a pleasure to listen. Their project to cure the Bahamas of piracy relied on his competence, and besides that, Thomas liked the look of him. He glowed.

"We'll be taking the southern route — I'll show you on the charts shortly — so the wind will be with us, but see here. With the sails trimmed at this point and here, we can sail quite close to the wind at need. That's how the pirates do it. They haven't the stones for a long chase, so they fly false colors and handle themselves lubberly, and try to spring the trap too near for their prey to run." His hands were animated, pointing out the Navy's clever technology and nudging Thomas's attention here and there, all the while stroking the _Stoat_ like a favorite horse.

It all sounded quite plausible to Thomas, so he nodded encouragement and started to point at another piece of the ship just to hear more of James's bottomless knowledge, but a polite shout from up above interrupted them. "Pardon, Captain, but could use a look here —"

Before the man was done speaking, James had taken off his hat, and now he swarmed up the ropes like a squirrel in an elm tree. He stopped more than a man-height over Thomas's head, throwing an ankle easily around a thick knot of rope bound to the tallest of two masts and balancing there with his hands free, feeling where the sailor pointed and nodding at the man's advice. 

Thomas was not at all shy about the chance to gaze up at his lover from this unaccustomed angle. Any of the crew who saw Thomas doing it would simply think he was either watching the conference or staring uncomprehendingly into space like the hopeless landsman that he was. Why not look, every chance he had to be taken innocently? He would need the memories, very soon, to keep him company for months while James was gone. See there, how James's hair — bright red and without a touch of powder, shockingly unfashionable — caught the light, for all the day was overcast. Thomas was quite aware that he saw James through love's golden haze, but also, he thought, any sensible person would agree that James was beautiful.

Soon James clambered down, his uniform still neat and starched, which Thomas's own suit would _not_ be if he had for some ungodly reason to scramble through the rigging. James's eyes scanned the deck, on the lookout for any other trouble. Thomas handed him his hat back, feeling pleased. He liked it when James took things from his hands. 

"The truth is that you're never in a state of full repair," James confided in him, explaining what problem had called him aloft. "It's a question of knowing what you must have fixed at port, what you can do at sea, and what can wait until you _next_ make port."

"Sounds terrifying," Thomas said sincerely. "Though perhaps also thrilling, to know what danger you sail into." 

And somewhere in those moments James was from his side, the Devil had walked up to Thomas Hamilton and put an idea into his head. 

Keeping his face serious, he leaned in to ask at James's shoulder, "I imagine that many thrilling things happen in the life of a sea captain. All these sturdy men, for one. Do they keep their shirts and trousers on at sea, Lieutenant? Or are they down to their drawers and sun-tanned skin the moment you are out of sight of land?" It was a pleasant image, he thought, glancing at the busy, hard-bodied men who were at James's command. Perhaps not all of them would be Thomas's own first choice for companionship, but then Ganymede himself could walk out of myth and Thomas would miss the fuss with James's image in his mind. Some of the sailors were quite well-made, speaking just of fact.

The widening of James's eyes and quick flush across his cheeks were reward enough for Thomas's bit of mischief. He put a friendly hand on James's back and moved him on, looking for some other opportunity to tease him. He was storing pleasure up, after all, to keep him warm while James was gone.

The tour continued, James behaving after that moment as if Thomas had said nothing inappropriate. Thomas said, looking at smooth iron bars protruding from the deck, thick and rigid and knobbed at the top, meant for ropes to be tied around, "Why, these put me in mind of this ship's master. I can't quite say why." And contemplating a hatch down which men must pass to reach supplies and rest, "A tight fit, I'd wager. Quite warm, though, and comfortable, and if you eased yourself in, really took your time, it would feel like something that had been missing all along."

He was working on some comment about mounting the cannons when they came back around to the mainmast. There was a grate set upright there, for various tools to be lashed to. He thought about certain stories he had heard and was inspired. Smiling, he curled his fingers through the grate and pulled James closer to him. 

"And is this where you will have a man tied up and flogged for disobeying you?" To tell the truth, Thomas was thinking of a flogging provided a few years ago by a dear friend, in a very different place and for an entirely different purpose, with a cat made of deerskin and bonds made of silk. Perhaps James would like to hear about that exploit, and assist Thomas in its recreation. James drew in a harsh breath, and when Thomas looked into his face it wasn't flushing but instead was tightly-set; his mouth was closed, and no trace of a smile lingered on his lips. 

Without a word out of the ordinary, James walked on, not looking back at him, and gestured toward another complex device bolted to the deck. "When readings must be taken, I and Mister Gollwood will stand here and — " Thomas followed after him, chastened suddenly by the feeling he had put his foot in it, but unable to devise the first theory as to how.

*

Ere long they had ducked down a narrow stair and were in the master's cabin, far at the back of the ship. Thomas could stretch his arms out side-to-side without touching either wall, but only just. He could stand upright, as long as he had a care to stay between the beams that ran overhead. The door closed snugly, and it was almost quiet, the soft creaking sounds of the ship and lapping water louder than the muffled human noises of the crew.

James laid his hat aside and went to the cabinet stuffed with charts. He was quiet, and his back was stiff. Thomas took his hat off, too, then after a moment his wig as well, and shrugged off the satchel that he'd carried. He brushed his fingers through his hair, letting the sweat cool and leaving it disordered.

No lamps were lit, but the room was as bright as it could reasonably be, with the silver-grey London daylight coming through the windows at the back wall and the skylight overhead. This was the only part of the ship, come to think, where Thomas had seen any windows at all. The men slept down below — not in the _hold_ but on the _orlop deck_ , James had taught him earlier — and if he thought on it too much he felt a chill of horror. Squeezed down there in the dark, not a hand's breadth between your hammock and the next man's, blind and cocooned while the ship moved through unseen waters. Sailors were hardy men to bear it.

How luxurious this cramped cabin must be, with that as the alternative. How private and quiet. No wonder James had no complaints about the shabby boarding house he'd stayed in; his room there was big enough to pace across, with windows on two walls. 

James turned back to him, face neutral and a rolled map in his hands, and Thomas hitched a hip over the desk and told himself not to be a coward. "You're angry with me," he said, and immediately he disliked how it sounded. Better to say, "I've made you angry. I don't know just how, but I think it was my teasing."

Pausing, James was still a moment, then he heaved a deep sigh and put the chart back whence it came. He straightened, so much a military man, and with Thomas sitting on the desk James was the taller. "It isn't that you joke," James said. "It's that you speak of certain things at all, when you do not understand them and I would rather that you never understand."

His hands were tucked behind his back, but Thomas could hear the rustle of them moving, could imagine thumb rasping across thumb and tapping on each knuckle. James's hands were always moving, when he was in thought or passion or aimless nerves, and it was a mark of pride that sometimes Thomas could soothe him til he was still. No grounds for pride today, it seemed.

"I don't like to think myself a flogging captain. It's sloppy and ill-disciplined to have men so often in need of beating. And if you do it right, the man is off of work at least a watch, and slow for days after." He paused, looking into Thomas's eyes, then fixing his gaze over Thomas's left shoulder. "You do it wrong, and his skin splits, first, and then starts to peel as you go on. The cat gets heavier as it gets bloody, did you know? That makes it hit harder on flesh already tenderized. At the end you pour salt water on him to wake him up, for he's long since passed out, and perhaps you save his life as well. The maggots that would grow there don't like the salt, and he might not get a fever. And of course, if you're the captain, you don't do it yourself, for it's beneath your dignity. You stand there as the eyes and mouth of Justice and you order it done.

"I've done it both right and wrong, Thomas. Sometimes I was the one to knot the rope. Discipline is necessary. But I hate to think of in your company, and when we'll soon not speak for months."

For the man who had taken Thomas to a hanging the day they met, still James was heartfelt. It made a difference, Thomas supposed, that _he_ hadn't been the hangman. And Thomas had not loved him yet, merely thought him handsome.

"That sounds terrible," Thomas said gravely, "and it would grieve me to see it. But it grieves me more that you must do it, and think that I would despise you for necessity." He shifted, sitting more comfortably on the desk, and tried to find some clues in James's face. The man should be a card player, because he was a solid wall when he put his mind to it. 

"I won't say you aren't a melancholic, James, but still these are strange thoughts for you to be having. What's this about 'when we'll soon not speak for months'? I don't look forward to missing you, but we've both agreed you must go, and I know you'll hurry back."

Even hurrying, it would be three months at least, James had said. Sailing out and through the Channel, on watch lest they be intercepted by some Frenchman, then south past Portugal, ‘til off the coast of Africa _Stoat_ would turn west. Then it was a long, slow arc through the Atlantic, with no land in sight until they came upon Barbados and paused only briefly to refresh their water and supplies. Then threading up along the Windward Isles, where there really _would_ be Frenchmen lurking somewhere, and probably pirates besides, ‘til north of Cuba and Hispaniola they'd find the Bahama Islands. And that was where James would walk again on dry land and find out how much trouble they were in. 

Three months at the very least, out and back, and Thomas wasn't fool enough to think that James would leave one moment before he'd fulfilled his mission. Neither would Thomas want him to. After he left the Bahamas it was another slow voyage arcing nor'east, to come home by the Azores, and all of it at the mercy of the winds. It might not be until after Christmas, or even as late as spring before James was in his arms again. Almost Thomas wanted to go with him, though he knew he couldn't.

Having James's dark thoughts between them during that separation would be intolerable.

James sighed again, and Thomas tried to smile in a way that inspired confidence. Wasted effort, for James's next words wiped the smile off his face.

"If you ... reach an understanding with another man while I'm away," James said seriously, "I ask that you not tell me his name when I return."

Thomas laughed, short, incredulous, and not at all amused. "You're jealous." 

"I only wish to avoid trouble."

"Well, you haven't." At least he'd cured Thomas of feeling guilt over having made him angry. James could give as good as he got, or as badly in this case. "I have an _understanding_ with several gentlemen, Lieutenant, and have for much longer than I've known you. How many of them have you seen in my bed? Or do you think I send them sneaking out the kitchen while you come in through the parlor?"

"I don't accuse you — "

"No, you simply expect it. Jesus, James." He rubbed his hand across his face, trying to recall how today had gone from a tour of a confusing boat to finding out his lover thought he was a whore.

A whore who would despise James for the brutalities of the Navy, at that.

No, he didn't like the stomach-churning description James had given of a flogging, and that was a fantasy ruined probably forever. But he needed to _know_ about these brutalities, else how was he to fix them? No wonder every military man's solution to piracy was to hang all the pirates, if that was how they treated their own men.

No wonder James would think so little of cutting Thomas to the quick. 

"What about you, Lieutenant?" Thomas asked, because he was hurting. "Have you a wife in some other port? A man here among your followers, who'll keep you company once you put to sea? A pretty boy? Since it seems extraordinary to you that I would go three or four months with my prick dry, you must —"

" _Thomas_ ," James hissed, and he grabbed Thomas by the shoulders as if he meant to shake him or to pull him close, Thomas couldn't guess which. He did neither, because Thomas stood up quickly and stepped sideways around the desk, very nearly hitting his head off a beam. James didn't try to stop him; his hands fell away. 

James always roused his passions, but he hated this one. Ever since he was a little boy, being angry always made him want to cry, not out of sadness but _frustration_. Anger streamed into his throat like thick mucus from an ague and choked off any explanation. Tears had only ever moved Father to disgust, and his sister Edith had called him a baby and said he shamed their family, _that_ was why Father beat him when he cried for no good reason, to teach him to be better. 

That stricken look on James's face — Thomas turned his back so that he didn't have to see it. 

His satchel, beneath his wig and hat. He picked it up and fumbled with it for a while, the simple buckle a Gordian knot while his heart beat too fast and he cursed himself for a fool. Cruel, hurtful, too much his father's son, he'd lost his temper over something foolish, and here he was, scrambling for a cure.

When the satchel opened, he nearly dropped the book. He clasped it in both hands and let the satchel fall instead, and then he turned and pressed the book into James's chest. "Open it," he pleaded.

Bewildered, James opened it, but to the wrong page. Halfway through, some aphorism, the old Emperor undoubtedly being very wise. Thomas, hands unsteady, carefully flipped the pages back to the title leaf instead. 

He'd agonized for hours about what to write inside, sketching ideas on scraps of paper. A poem or some quotation, something James might read and think of him. In the end, he'd gone with his first impulse. He'd written what he most needed James to know. 

_My truest love. Know no shame._

For a time, James simply looked at it, and Thomas feared it wasn't enough. He was out of practice in asking for forgiveness, and he was still angry with James, but he didn't want to be. 

James stepped away from him, closing the book, and sat down on an iron-bound chest with the book across his lap. Thomas's hands fell away. He was not going to cry. He would feel tired instead, and very low and miserable, which was better than useless, unarticulated anger.

James looked up at him and chuckled without any humor. "That was a bastard thing for me to say, wasn't it?" he asked as if he just now realized.

"Yes," Thomas agreed. "And me, too."

"I'm sorry," James said.

"I trust you," Thomas said, and James was caught on the wrong foot. 

Thomas sat down on the floor, right in front of him, cross-legged. He spread his hands, trying to show the shape of his thoughts. He had too much to say, still, now that he'd forbidden anger to linger and clog his throat. "I trust you to know the world as it is. You've seen more of it than I have; you've lived it. You think I don't know that I'm ridiculous, striding about my salons opining on great matters in which I've never had a part? I know it."

Out of loyalty, Thomas thought, James might have made to say something, so Thomas didn't let him. "You tried to shock me with your talk of flogging, and I deserved it, because I'd been trying to shock you, too. Do you know, I'd hoped to get you in here so that I could suck you off, after I'd driven you to distraction? It's what I get for being frivolous when you are serious."

Well, they were both suffering for that one.

"But, Lieutenant, when I tell you that I am not ashamed of you, I mean _I am not ashamed_. I would tell the whole world you are mine, if I could do it and keep you safe. I can't, because the world is brutal and mankind is fearful and small-minded, and I trust you when you tell me that. I ask that you trust me when I try to find a way for the world to be different."

For a moment, James moved his mouth like a landed fish. There was a brightness in his eyes, strange reflections of the silver-grey light, and when he managed words he sounded strangled. "We aren't going to perform _buggery_ on my _ship_." Quickly, he glanced up at the skylight, as if someone might be lurking up there to hear. No one was allowed there on the quarterdeck except a picked handful of men, and James spoke of the place as if were holy and none would dare to breach it, but he looked all the same. 

Thomas rolled his eyes. "As if we would be the only ones. I did go to Eton, James. I know very well what men get up to when there aren't any women to be had for love or money." 

And not just men of his own proclivities, either. If _that_ were the only thing that could tempt a man into a spot of buggery, the English aristocracy would've died out long ago. The Scots would've taken over.

"Yes, but, Thomas, it's bad for discipline —" and about there James realized that Thomas was laughing at him, and James started laughing, too. "You are _infuriating_. Oh, God, I love you, and I'm going to miss you." He wiped at his eyes, where laughter had dashed out a few tears. But he kept one hand on the book, stroking his fingers over it as if memorizing the grain. Then, resolute, he thrust the book out to Thomas and said seriously, "I need you to hold on to this for me. Keep it for me until I come home."

Thomas took it back with both hands and held it like it was something precious, because it was.

He looked down at his trousers, which were not at all harmed from sitting on the floor. This was James's cabin. Any dust motes that had settled here must live in mortal fear, for every time Thomas has turned around on this ship a sailor had been behind him with a holystone in his hand and a manic gleam in his eye, looking for something new to scour.

He'd hold on to the book for three months, maybe more. James had gone over the timetable with him, how it might change if they must make landfall at Barbados. At Jamaica. If they were pursued by the French. By a Spaniard. If they must flee far up the coast and put in at Charleston. At New York. At Boston. If the war followed them. If the pirates tried their luck.

There would be no surgeon on this voyage because James hadn't been able to get one that he liked. Better no surgeon at all than a bad one, James avowed, so he would keep the medicines locked in his trunk and the men would handle their physik themselves. _And I will try not to get us shot,_ James had said drily. But he couldn't promise that would succeed.

Thrilling, to know you were sailing into danger.

"I think I need to supervise the rest of the preparations," Thomas decided. 

"You do," James said. It was neither a question nor agreement.

Thomas thought about the winding London miles between this ship and his townhouse. James's belongings were stowed aboard already; he'd given up his boarding room. He was planning to stay here until _Stoat_ sailed.

Thomas nodded, settling the matter. "This is my expedition, after all. The Earl certainly isn't paying for it. I think I'll take rooms nearby. It's too far to travel from the house every day." 

James held out a hand to help him up.

**Author's Note:**

> Fun fact: Thomas's description of his plans for James's cabin was the original outline of this fic. You'll note that there are no blowjobs in this version. Because SOMEONE wanted to be DRAMATIC and not get LAID.
> 
>  _HMS Stoat_ is fictional, but _HMS Ferret_ and _HMS Weazle_ were both sloops-of-war in service in 1705.I gave them a sister because I am lazy. Their regular crew complement seems to have been about 80 men, but that was when they were looking for a fight; James, for once in his life, isn't.


End file.
